


let love be left uncharted

by Issay



Series: One-shot collection [18]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Light Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24358840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: Back when they were still hunting for horcruxes, cold and lost and hungry – back when everything was much simpler, Hermione thinks with a hint of irony – she used to think that killing Voldemort will solve everything. They get rid of the cursed objects that kept a thin thread of his life within them, Harry does his hero thing, Death Eaters get what is coming to them, and the world goes back to how it was before: golden, and magical, and innocent.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Series: One-shot collection [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/640094
Comments: 7
Kudos: 108





	let love be left uncharted

**Author's Note:**

> The last couple of months have been almost unbearably hard, making it impossible to write. This is my attempt to get back on the metaphorical horse.  
> Siiiiiigh.

Back when they were still hunting for horcruxes, cold and lost and hungry – back when everything was much simpler, Hermione thinks with a hint of irony – she used to think that killing Voldemort will solve everything. They get rid of the cursed objects that kept a thin thread of his life within them, Harry does his hero thing, Death Eaters get what is coming to them, and the world goes back to how it was before: golden, and magical, and innocent.

„I think I was really naive before,” she mutters to herself in the middle of that first night after their bitter victory, taste of ashes still in her mouth, blood under her chipped fingernails. Nothing is fine. Hogwarts is half-ruined and half-burned. George howled until he had no voice, seeking comfort in the arms of his distraught mother and finding none as for him there would be no relief after Fred's death. Hermione thinks about Teddy Lupin, both of his parents laid out on the cold stone floor in the Great Hall. Harry died, and then lived again – and the only ones who seemingly found a happy ending were the fucking Malfoys. Hermione feels the wave of anger, the ugly type of fury she's usually not proud of, swell inside her throat (still scratchy from tears) and slips out of bed. She feels like she hasn't slept in a decade. She can't sleep so she does the next best thing: goes down to the kitchen, tiptoeing through unfamiliar house, and makes herself a cup of tea.

„I couldn't sleep either,” says Harry quietly, appearing out of nowhere and sitting down by the window. Hermione nods and takes a second mug out of the cupboard.

„It's really nice of madame Longbottom to let us stay here.” The steaming tea is good, familiar, makes her think of that long year in their makeshift tent of a home. They've spent many nights like this, the two of them.”I don't think I could spend the night in the dormitories, not after everything.”

Harry sighs and she's known him a lifetime, Hermione knows what this sigh means: the shared mourning of their childhood innocence, lost much too soon to a war that refused to wait for them to grow up. His parents at least got to their adulthood. He's an old man already.

Hermione reaches out and takes his hand, feeling the anger leave her – and suddenly only the weary peace remains. Harry squeezes her fingers comfortingly, his other hand tight on his wand because they are the children of that war; they are its perfect creatures.

Hermione soundlessly repeats a litany of shield charms and barrier spells, just in case. She doesn't even realize that she took the beaded bag with her until it falls onto the ground next to her foot.

„I just realized,” she says the next morning over some toast elves served for breakfast, lost in thought, „I don't have anywhere to go.”

Harry ponders that for a moment while chewing his bacon, and after washing it down with tea he seems to have reached a decision.

„Hermione,” he starts seriously, and it hits Hermione that she would do anything just to see that boy laughing again. „What do you know about casting a Fidelius?”

Enough, apparently, so they go to Grimmauld Place and cast everything they can think of, starting with Fidelius and ending with some maybe-perhaps-not-fully-legal traps and shields. Exhausted, they sit down on the stairs on the first floor, their bodies touching from leg to shoulder, and simply look at the mess around them.

„Well, we've needed a project,” Hermione comments quietly. Harry chuckles but there is no joy in his laugh. „The war is over. Might as well, I don't know, renovate.”

„We've been fighting in a war since we were eleven, 'Mione. I have no idea how life during peace should feel like... But sure. We can renovate.”

So for a month they live at Augusta's (she's glad, someone has to watch over these two kids and the Weasleys are too deep in their grief so madame Longbottom makes sure Harry and Hermione eat, and have clean clothes, and bullies them into taking Dreamless Sleep when the deep shadows under their eyes darken too much) and spend their days in Grimmauld, hidden behind walls and walls of spells and silence. Hermione burrows her way through housekeeping and renovating-themed books, of course after they cleanse most of the brownstone of the dark magic artifacts, not to mention dozens of magical creatures who took up residence in the brownhouse. Portraits and dark books are burned in the backyard.

„Good riddance,” Harry comments when they watch with satisfaction the Black family tree go up in flames. Hermione spends two days figuring out the spells keeping Sirius' mother on the wall and discovers that the layer of magic goes only halfway through the wall. They burn the portrait along with the tree wallpaper.

„I think we should move the kitchen to the ground floor.”

Hermione looks around – dark corners with ancient spiders the size of rats and the stain on the floor where Kreacher died that they weren't able to clean; air freezing cold despite it being summer – and nods.

„I'll find...”

„...a book, yes, please. And something about plumbing, too.”

Sometimes Ron joins in, and sometimes he brings Ginny but mostly Harry and Hermione work by themselves. It's too complicated to actually give voice to the things left unsaid. When the battle was over and they were still alive, it just got awkward. So by wordless understanding all four of them avoid the topic, instead of just exchanging soft „have you slept?” and „how is Molly doing?”, intertwined with „oh, I've seen Luna yesterday, they've rebuilt the house” or „Dean and Seamus are a thing now, I had no idea”. They don't talk about the past. They don't talk about the future.

It's easier to just be in the moment, one day at a time, and Hermione figures they sure as hell deserved life being easier for a little while at least. And if they find solace in tearing up floors and bickering over varnishes at three in the morning, no one is there to judge.

They don't celebrate Harry's birthday at his request – instead the two of them leave the house and wander the streets of London, get lost in the city over and over again, and find new things around every corner. Hermione smiles warmly when he drags her from one charming little alley to another, and they eat ice cream while sitting on the steps of the National Gallery, and then walk to Buckingham Palace and further, Wellington's Arch.

„We need to do that more often,” Harry says when they get back to Grimmauld, laughter still in his eyes, a speck of chocolate on his lower lip.

„We need to do more things for fun,” she adds and it makes sense, no one knows them in the Muggle world, they can be at peace and do whatever the hell they want, go and see whatever they want. There will be no stares, no danger.

(They both keep their wands in wrist holders, always vigilant, dead man's words going through their minds at all hours of the day.)

But the world isn't always kind to them, like that time Harry finds a trunk full of Sirius' stuff and ends up a tearful mess for Hermione to hold tightly, so that he wouldn't shake apart.

„This isn't from his childhood,” Hermione notes some time later when he's calm enough to sort through the contents of the trunk. What they find is not a lot but oh so telling: a pair of worn comfortable boots, a spare wand (Harry pockets it without saying a word), some prototypes gifted to Sirius by Fred and George, always the faithful admirers. Some photos of young Order mixed with those of the Second Order of Phoenix, and Hermione blinks back her own tears angrily.

„They were all so young,” she whispers. „We were all so young.”

On the bottom of the trunk, under some socks undoubtedly knitted by Molly Weasley and a bottle of cologne, Harry finds a thick stack of letters, tied together into neat piles with charmed ribbons. Spells unwind under his fingers, recognizing him as Sirius' heir.

„He'd want you to read them,” Hermione says quietly. Harry doesn't trust his voice so he doesn't respond, but he takes the letters as well.

Or that time they get owls from the Ministry – two weeks into August, after they've moved to Grimmauld for good, sleeping on the mattresses thrown onto the bare floor of master bedroom, not trusting the world yet enough to sleep in separate rooms, cocooned by silence and thick veil of spells keeping the outside away. Oh, they've gotten letters before, about Orders of Merlin, and charitable galas, and requests for interviews. They've decided to ignore all but these are different. These are basically job offers.

“They've awarded us top NEWTs in everything,” Hermione says without much emotion in her voice, surprising herself. “I'm not even sorry I won't get to write them. How bizarre.”

“I don't think I could get back to Hogwarts anytime soon.” Grief is so apparent, so naked in his voice, she reaches out to hold his free hand in support. “There's also a pension for war heroes, quite generous.”

“I don't feel like I should take it,” she sighs. “They're offering me a job with the Wizengamot.”

Harry puts away his own letter – Auror's Office, she'll learn later – and reaches for her other hand, and looks at Hermione seriously.

“I'm going to ask you something and I need to you answer with the first thing that comes to your mind. All right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to work there?”

Hermione takes a deep breath and squeezes his fingers tightly. Harry doesn't seem to mind.

“No,” she says, and her voice does not crack. “I don't know what I want but Harry, taking money doesn't feel right, there's so many people who can't...”

He shushes her patiently and moves to embrace her bony shoulders, to press her heavy head just under his chin. Hermione curls into him, the scent of his skin familiar and comforting.

“For all I care we can spend the rest of our lives here. Really, 'Mione, we've done enough. I'm tired. I want to finish remodeling the house, and maybe read some books you'll recommend, and go visit the new Burrow, then maybe meet up with some people from DA. I want to go to the British Museum, and see a show at the Globe. And you're allowed to be exhausted too, you know?”

“I don't want to be a burden,” Hermione whispers into the skin of his collarbones, and Harry's arms tighten around her, fingers of his wand hand tangling in her hair.

“If it wasn't for you, me and Ron wouldn't have made it. You're never a burden, you hear me? Merlin knows I have more money than I'll be able to spend in a lifetime, for all I care you can take the Black money and...and do something good with it. Like a charity or something.”

She's not sure when she started to cry but now she cannot stop, like floodgates have opened and all she can do is hold on to Harry as he patiently holds her through it. She weeps for everything they've lost, for the awkward silences in the Burrow, for Ron's hurt look when she told him that moment in the Chamber was just that – a moment. Hermione cries for Lavender and Fred, for Colin and for Tonks, for countless others who have died but also those who have lived to carry the grief. For Sirius and Remus and even Snape, and for Dumbledore because her anger at him has since dissipated.

For her own parents, saved and lost by her magic, the loss she still can't talk about except for that one time when she told Harry it couldn't be undone. She made it so because Hermione was convinced she wouldn't live to see the end of the war.

When she finally runs out of tears, they're sitting on the floor still tangled together, her face half-hidden in Harry's plaid shirt.

“Thanks,” Hermione mutters, exhausted, and he responds with a kiss dropped onto the crown of her head. He's still holding her tightly and makes no effort to move so she allows herself the comfort. 

“Don't mention it.”

A couple of days later Hermione feels brave enough to open the Daily Prophet they've been subscribed to but left untouched in a box on their kitchen counter (because yes, as of September 15 th it's “theirs”, Harry dragged her to Gringott's and added her name to the act of property ownership).

Harry's upstairs, working on setting up new shelving units in the library, when she makes herself a cup of coffee and opens the latest edition.

“I was wrong,” she says out loud to no one in particular after reading some of the articles, the one about Lucius Malfoy being sentenced to a decade in Azkaban, while Narcissa and Draco received only house arrest (Harry wrote a letter to Wizengamot to help Narcissa's case, Hermione made the wording nicer and more polite). “So they didn't get that happy ending after all.”

Somehow this causes the world to make a little bit more sense.

In November, when it's cold and wet outside but Grimmauld is now perfectly cozy and insulated – Hermione comes to a quiet realization about how her life is going to look like, and the knowledge takes her breath away in the best possible way.

It's a sleepy morning with rain pouring outside, and she's making tea when Harry stumbles in, mumbles a hello, and hugs her from behind, hiding his face in the untamed bush of her hair. Hermione hums happily when his long arms crisscross on her stomach and she leans back, comfortable. They stay like this, drops of rain hitting windowsills, and Hermione suddenly understands that whatever happens – wherever life goes – she won't be facing it all alone. It makes Hermione breathe a little easier.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from absolutely lovely "The Navigator" by Vian Izak.


End file.
